Young Women in Active Politics in Malawi

The project has been running since the beginning of 2018 and in the first phase the aim was to increase the number of women, especially young women, who would run for local and national office in May 2019. The aim is to support women to run for office but also influence the party leaders to work towards having more women in leading positions and running for office. The projects target group is young women both in the countryside and at the universities. 

The Liberal Party, Green Left and DIPD contribute to the project by exchanging experiences between the Danish political parties and the 5 parties in Malawi that are represented in the parliament, as well as the Danish youth parties and the youth organisations in Malawi. If COVID19 allows it 10 young people from the Green Left's Youth and the Liberal Youth Party will be doing a four-week internship in Malawi where they will work with young people in Malawi on strengthening their organisation, involvement, and influence in the parties. Furthermore, DIPD supports the local partners in implementing a mentorship programme for the young women.  

There have been several Danish delegations to Malawi meeting the female candidates and mentors. In November 2018 two Danish members of Parliament Karen Elleman from the Liberal Party and Trine Schøning from Green Left went to Malawi and engaged in dialogue with women on how they can strengthen their position within the parties, how best to run a campaign and how political parties can strengthen their voter support when there is equal representation of women, youth, and especially young women.  

At the election in 2019 two of the young women involved in the project were elected as members of the town councils. The other nominees were not elected and several them lost the internal elections deciding who would run as candidates. Due to the election system in Malawi, there is only one candidate from each district why the internal competition is tough and often the parties estimate that it will decrease their chances to win if they run a female candidate. 

The project has made several analyses of the barrier especially young women face on their way to influence. The biggest barrier is lack of resources and possibility of paying the so-called hand-outs where the voters are offered small amounts as payment for voting on a specific candidate. It was banned a couple years ago but is still very common. 

The project focused a lot on committing the party leaders to secure more equal representation and supporting female candidates.